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Star reporter testifies in defamation trial

A veteran Toronto Star journalist accused of defaming a Georgina innkeeper says he did everything he could to get her to tell her side of the story.

In his first day on the witness stand, the Star’s Dale Brazao said that while reporting the 2008 story he “tried every which way” to explain to the innkeeper the seriousness of the allegations against her, but she still refused to answer questions about a foreign worker she had employed that summer.

“I don’t know what else I could have done to get this lady to speak to me,” Brazao said before an Ontario Superior Court justice Monday.

Shirley Browne, 59, owner of Whispering Pines bed and breakfast in Jackson’s Point, is suing the Star for libel over a front-page story published on Sept. 22, 2008, that suggested she illegally employed a foreign worker as an overworked, underpaid domestic servant.

The newspaper report told the story of Catherine Manuel, who came to Toronto to work as a live-in nanny, but instead wound up at Browne’s inn on Lake Simcoe after paying a Toronto-based recruiter $4,500 to get her a job. She was quoted in the story saying she was worked “morning, noon and night, and then some.”

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The innkeeper says the article is false and defamatory and is seeking $2 million in damages.

Star lawyer Paul Schabas said at the outset of trial that the story is true and was responsibly reported.

Brazao testified Monday that during an unannounced visit to Whispering Pines before the article ran, he told Browne he was writing a story about serious accusations Manuel had made against her -- that she was overworked at the inn, hadn't been fed and wasn't being paid properly. Browne refused to answer questions and turned Brazao away after a brief conversation. Brazao followed up with phone calls to the inn and to Peter Flaherty, Browne’s common-law partner, but both refused to speak.

The reporter said he was trying to be fair to Browne and do his due diligence.

Court learned that Brazao, who has been with the Star for 37 years, has won or been nominated for several prestigious journalism awards. His story about Manuel was part of a series that chronicled the experience of foreign workers in Canada.

Brazao said in court that over the course of his career as an investigative journalist at the Star, he has developed a unique speciality. “I go after people who can’t be found,” he testified. The reporter said he once tracked down a man in Portugal who had fled Canada after killing a 6-year-old Toronto girl in a hit-and-run while living here illegally.

Court heard Monday that Brazao made many attempts while researching the Catherine Manuel story to track down Terra Holman, the woman Manuel was supposed to work for under the terms of her legal work agreement.

But Holman, whom Browne has described as her surrogate sister, was nowhere to be found. A home phone number for Holman listed on Manuel’s immigration documents was disconnected when Brazao called. A man who answered the phone at a work number told the reporter he had never heard of Holman. And several people at an apartment building where she was supposed to have lived —neighbours, the superintendent and a mail carrier — didn’t know who she was either, Brazao said.

Browne had previously testified that she took Manuel in as a favour to Holman, and didn’t realize the foreign worker wasn’t legally allowed to work for her.

Brazao testified that Manuel broke down three or four times when he interviewed her in 2008, with others present, about her time at Whispering Pines.

“She was a completely broken woman,” he said.

His testimony continues Tuesday.

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